Combining sports and fantasy elements is becoming a bit of a mainstay in tabletop gaming, especially if that sport is American style football or rugby. Bloodbowl did it first but games like Dreadball, Guild Ball and Chaos Ball all take a similar approach, but why not other sports? Would you be interested in Orc Cricket? Troll Tennis? Or how about Wizard Dodgeball? Well the last one is a reality as Peter Newland at Mind the Gap Studios has added a fantasy element to a game about dodging balls.

I still haven’t played all the games I wanted to from 2012, seriously I have yet to play both Rex and Merchants of Venus, never mind all the games I wanted to play from 2013 and 2014. Yet the gaming industry doesn’t stop and due to the backlog of funded games on Kickstarter and the way in which the industry as a whole is getting better at building hype for future games, we have a really good idea of what’s available in the coming year. So much so I was able to put together a list of 20 games that could possibly be brilliant in coming year. If even half of these games deliver on their promises then 2015 is going to be another awesome year in gaming.

Focus Home Interactive have announced work on a Battlefleet Gothic video game. Battlefleet Gothic: Armada will be a real time strategy game for the PC and follows the trials of the Imperial Navy as they try and hold back Abaddon’s Black Crusade.

See that polyhedral object on the board, the one with 20 sides, that isn’t a dice. No that is my dreadnought class capitol ship, slowly making its way towards your homeworld. See those four sided dice grouped around it? Those are a squadron of small and agile fighters ready to strike ahead of the main fleet. Using dice to represent ships in intergalactic combat is quite popular at the moment and in Nearspace you’ll use them to explore new territory and destroy your foes.

Just because a game is new and shiny and fresh it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s better than what has come before, something I think we forget in this age of the cult of the new. It’s because of this, and influenced by the great Fire Broadside blog, that I like to look back at the games I’ve played the most over the previous year, we’ve already been through what I consider the best games of 2014 but where those the games I actually played the most during the year?

If you where getting all prepped up for the launch of Demented Games’ Kickstarter then we’ve got news for you, and you can decide if its good or bad in your own time. Twisted, a steampunk skirmish and board game isn’t coming to Kickstarter, instead Demented games are just going to release it.

2014 has been another great year for tabletop gaming. The hobby is going from strength to strength and is getting more main stream as each month passes. The time has come yet again to look at what have been the best games of the year, and as per 2012 and 2014 I’m putting the usual caveat of the best games that I’ve played. There have been literally 1000s of games released in 2014 and to play them all would be almost impossible, so here’s the yearly breakdown based on the games I’ve played.

I swear I had started writing this article before Beasts of War released the same story but you’re not going to believe me so don’t worry if you’ve seen this before and marvel at the concept artwork for Icarus Miniatures upcoming science fiction miniatures game.